Richardson-based general contracting firm Hill & Wilkinson is partnering with Texas Tech University to build a $91 million expansion for the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock.

The project involves adding 185,000 square feet to the health sciences center—including new research laboratories and gross-anatomy labs—as well as putting up two new freestanding buildings, a conference center, and the likes of collaboration study areas and translational research facilities classrooms.

Perkins + Will is the project’s architect.

The center at Texas Tech graduates more than 1,800 students a year, and school officials say the expansion project will usher in “the next generation” of technology and health science.

“This expansion presents unprecedented opportunities to extend our traditional strengths in teaching, research, and patient care …” Tedd Mitchell, president of TTUHSC, said in a news release. “We graduate the largest number of healthcare providers in the state of Texas, and these new and expanded spaces will bind our campus together in ways that encourage interaction and promote collaboration.”

Added Paul Driscoll, Hill & Wilkinson CEO: “It’s very exciting to be selected to build the first major project on the site since the existing center was built in the 1970s.”

The project is expected to be completed in 2019, just in time for the center’s 50th anniversary.